


Paying It Forward

by pawn_vs_player



Series: leave the light behind [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Altered Mental States, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Dark, Dark Ginny Weasley, Gen, Hallucinations, Horcruxes, Identity Issues, Kinda, Mental Health Issues, Other, POV Second Person, Possession, Under the Influence of Horcruxes, Violent Thoughts, canon-typical bigotry, non-sexual nudity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-01-09
Packaged: 2019-03-02 18:30:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13323999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pawn_vs_player/pseuds/pawn_vs_player
Summary: Under the right circumstances, a Horcrux can create another Horcrux.





	Paying It Forward

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to Day One of Adrian's Exam Week Updates!  
> I started working on this last year, but it was started to snowball in a bad direction, so I cut it off and left it alone. So, for now, it's a oneshot. If y'all like it, I might come back to this universe and continue the story into the other HP books, but right now this is all there is.  
> (I have another HP story in the works - the sequel to my Hermione-centric story a while back - but that probably won't be finished this week, since it's shaping up to be a lot longer than that one.)

Children continue to surprise you.

You thought you'd learned enough about them at the orphanage, but then you came to Hogwarts and it was a whole new world. You'd been wasting your time with filthy Muggles when you could have been leading a crowd of loyal wizards and witches, powerful beings far superior and far more interesting than any Muggle scum you might come across.

Unfortunately, even wizardkind has its disappointments... and, while even the dullest of wizards is better than a Muggle, they can be _painfully_ dull at times. You have come to accept this as an intrinsic part of mankind.

And yet...

Children, those unformed and seemingly weakest of mortals, continue to surprise you.

Perhaps it is because they are not meant to have strength. Perhaps it is because they are still being made and molded by the world they occupy. Perhaps it is something else entirely, something you yourself have yet to comprehend. The reason behind the fact, you have decided, is not what is important: it is the fact itself.

Particular children are more fascinating than others.

Harry Potter, of course - but you aren't thinking of him right now. Certainly this began as a scheme to lure him into your clutches so you could finally dispose of the stain on your power, but along the way it became something else.

Someone wise once said, _Stare into the void and it shall stare back into you._

Well, you are not the void, but you could be said to be missing quite a few essential pieces.

And little miss Weasley has been doing quite a bit of staring.

 

She is a blood traitor. All the Weasleys are. But she is young, still moldable, still impressionable. Lucius, lovely loyal Lucius, slipped you into her naive hands and you wormed into her vulnerable heart, and here you shall stay.

You had considered sending Ginny to her brother and corrupting him, too- but the youngest Weasley boy is already too wrapped up in Harry Potter. He would not fall to you nearly so easy as his lovely little sister, and you won't take the risk of him exposing your hold on the Weasley girl to someone who might intervene. Like Dumbledore, the accursed prick.

Ginny Weasley has a crush on Harry Potter, you discover quickly. It's not exactly a surprise, considering how pathetically entranced by the boy her brother is. It provides you with even more opportunity.

And yet -

Ginny Weasley, the more you speak with her, is revealed as a very interesting child. There is so much inside her, so much bright emotion, so many dark thoughts.

(You don't have to push as hard as she pretends for her to do the things she does her first year at Hogwarts.)

She is lovely, a flower waiting to bloom, the petals deciding between colors.

You've always liked watching flowers wilt, but they have to blossom first. You think Ginny Weasley will be quite the sight to behold.

You think of Bellatrix. Oh, Bellatrix- so eager, so obedient, but so hopeless. So infatuated with you. She is a good servant, and you find her price of a soft touch, a gentle word, an easy one to pay- yet, one irritating to mete out.

You wonder what Ginny Weasley's slave-price will be.

 

Something that many do not understand is that not all Horcruxes are equal. Your first Horcrux was made shortly after interrogating Slughorn, when you were sixteen: you split your soul in half and slipped into your old diary, which the rest of you later entrusted to your lieutenant Lucius Malfoy (who may not be the most loyal of followers, but who can always worm his way out of trouble and keep those precious to him in the bargain). From then on, your body held half a soul, until you made another Horcrux- and that meant splitting the half in half.

It's decades later, now, and the you-in-the-diary, the you that speaks to Ginny Weasley and sees something valuable, is the largest piece of soul that still remains.

It is no wonder that the littlest Weasley fell to your charms so quickly. With so much of you to corrupt her, there's precious little chance of her escaping you.

 

They never actually find the body of the one _poor_ Hogsmead Mudblood that did not look away in time.

It was the basilisk's stare who killed him, certainly, but it was Ginny's deed, Ginny's hand guiding the basilisk's line of sight, and you fill her ears with laughter as you feel her soul crack.

From there it is easy. You never fully leave the diary, but your half-soul already fills in the cracks of Ginny Weasley's and pushes to make them grow steadily bigger.

She still writes to you daily, like she doesn't understand what you're doing to her.

It's easy for you to slip shards of her soul into the book and exchange them with pieces of yourself. She is so very trusting. 

(It is one of the things you both hate and adore about your little project.)

 

By the time you bring precious little Ginny down to the Chamber and go silent within her mind, the two of you are firmly intertwined.

Harry Potter stabs the book. You are split in half once more, the quarter-soul screeching out its death even as you remain safely encased inside Ginny Weasley.

If Harry notices the doubled screams, the voice of a mostly-dead boy and of a corrupted girl, he doesn't react.

 

 

You return to the Burrow at the beginning of summer, still quiet, still shaking inside when someone touches you. You taste blood in the back of your mouth when you swallow. You hear high-pitched laughter when you try to speak. You see green scales and green light when you close your eyes.

You can still feel him inside you, somewhere too deep to dig out. You know he's there; you hear his whispers when your family speaks to you, and your dreams now consist solely of his memories.

You sit down to breakfast and Ron touches your wrist, the pale scar from when you gashed your wrist on the Basilisk's side. His eyes are sad.

 _Filthy blood traitor_ , you think, or he thinks, but it's your voice that says the words. For a moment, ice flooding your veins, you think that maybe you said it aloud - but Ron looks at you the same, and none of your brothers are paying attention, and Mum hasn't turned from the stove. The words remain solely in your mind.

You play Quidditch in the backyard and you ask to play Beater this time. You say you want to have experience with all the positions so you'll have more of a chance of playing the team next year. Fred hands you his bat and asks you to go easy.

You do, but every time the ball ricochets off your strike, you imagine your brothers' heads cracking open and Gryffindor-scarlet dripping out. 

(You imagine using that disgusting red to draw a picture you have never seen, but which you know intimately.)

 

You slip out of bed when the moon is high, when your family is asleep. You strip off your nightgown and look at yourself in the mirror. You're still made of soft lines, flat chest and flat stomach- too young to have developed in any way except the mental.

You push your arm out toward the mirror, not daring to look at it directly, only in the reflection.

The skin is clean and ivory-pale, no trace of black lines, and you breathe out.

You catch your own eyes in the mirror. They are brown, the same as your father's, they've always been brown.

You blink.

Your eyes shine green.

You turn away from the mirror and tug your nightgown back on. It's only once you get back in bed that you realize how fast and shaky your breaths are coming.

 _Calm,_ you-he says. Your lungs slow. _Sleep,_ you-he says, and your eyes close.

 

Your second year, you don't do much. Harry does, of course (but that’s not ‘til later). You keep out of the way as much as you can.

You visit Hagrid at his hut in your free time. Fang licks your face. _Disgusting,_ you think the first time. _Sweet,_ you think the second.

Hagrid makes you inedible food. _Abominable,_ you think. "There's room for improvement," you say. "Mum's showed me a few things. Want some lessons?"

He still serves inedible food, but when you get in his kitchen, the two of you eat better.

 _Room for improvement,_ the voice inside you says, rolling the words around like dice. _Room for improvement._

 

Hermione shows you how to braid your hair in a multitude of ways. _Mudblood scum,_ you think. "Thanks," you say.

Hermione also blazes ahead in all her classes. _Genius,_ you tell yourself when you look at her, _that is what a genius looks like, none of the purebloods I know are that good._

You see a blond girl being picked on. _Weak_ , you think, and _How dare they?_

Someone calls her Loony, _Loony Loony Lovegood, silly little bitch, crazy ideas and crazier daddy,_ and then your veins blaze with fury.

"Get away from her," you demand from down the hall, your wand in your hand. You don't remember drawing it.

The thick boy holding Lovegood still laughs. "Whatcha gonna do, second year? Throw water at us?"

Spells rise in your mind, curses and hexes and Unforgiveables.

You pick a simple one, a _fun_ one. The boy's nose floods with bats. He falls screaming, thrashing on the floor as thick, furry creatures flap free of his nostrils. The others try to run. You cast curses at their backs with the accuracy of a full-grown wizard- poxes and pain and insanity. (The last one misses.)

The blonde girl blinks at you. "Who are you?"

"I'm Ginny," you say. _I'm Tom,_ you think.

You reach out and take her hand, helping her to her feet. "Are you alright?"

"Yes," the girl says, and smiles at you. "I'm Luna."

You smile back, tugging the collar of her robe into place. "Hullo, Luna."

 

Luna is the strangest girl you've ever met, but she never lets anyone's opinion of her change how she is. She speaks of invisible creatures and impossible magic, and you drink it all in and ask for more.

Luna is strange, but so are you. Strangeness is a good thing, as far as you've found.

 

Still second year; Sirius Black escapes prison and Dementors flood the castle. You watch them drift across the lawns from the tower window, pressing your cheek to the cool glass.

"Eerie, aren't they?" Hermione asks from her bed. You spare her a glance; as usual, she has a book open in her lap and her thick braids are wound around her head, but instead of reading she's looking at you, the recipient of her question.

"Yeah," you mutter, and glance back down.

You could swear that one of them looks back up at you. The wind whistles against the glass and sends the grass waving and the Dementor's hood flapping: it keeps looking at you, stilling when its companions continue ahead; your lungs stall and your heart stutters as the Dementor's strange hand rises to its hood, brushing a skeletal finger down under the pitch darkness of its face-

You tear your eyes away, breathing hard. You see a skull in your mind's eye, snakes crawling from the eye sockets and blood painting a grotesque smile onto the cheekbones. You glance around, hugging yourself tightly to warm up: Hermione has disappeared, her book and bag gone with her. You don't know how much time has passed. Your chest aches. Your head feels like your brain's been replaced with cotton.

Happy thoughts, Professor Lupin had said. Happy thoughts and chocolate.

 _A Patronus will drive them off,_ you-not-you thinks. _Happy memories, pure joy, and your Patronus will appear and send them away. That is what they fear. That is what they cannot stand._

There's chocolate in your bag. You eat a piece, chewing slowly. "How do I make a Patronus?" you whisper aloud.

_Expecto Patronum. Think of something good._

You take out your wand and glance back at the window. You close your eyes, forcing away the sight of the flutter of a black cloak, the sensation of the cold miserable wind that follows behind the flapping cloth.

" _E-Expecto Patronum!_ "

 

_(Bill's trying to teach you and Ron to fly. Charlie's home for the summer, and he's leaning against the backdoor and laughing like mad. Ron's hit himself in the face with his broom twice already and George is jeering at him from his bedroom window. Fred is in the kitchen with their mother- she'd roped him into helping prepare dinner, but he's turned it into a chance to stall her while you and Ron get your lesson._

_"Just say up, Ron," Bill says tiredly. "And move your face."_

_You grin at your brother. "Betcha I can get it to work this time!"_

_He sticks out his tongue at you._

_"UP!" you both yell._

_The broomstick shoots into your hand. Your stomach flutters. Without even thinking about it, you tug your skirt up and swing your leg over onto the broom, squeezing the wood tight in your palms._ Up, _you think, and up you go._

_"Ginny!" Ron yells. You're laughing louder than Charlie, your wind-whipped hair blinding you, your skirt rustling against your thighs, your lip hurting from where you bit it earlier the first time you'd failed._

_You're flying.)_

 

You open your eyes.

There's the vague shape of something, flickering and shifting, like it's caught between two forms.

You close your eyes, concentrate again.  _Think of something good._

 

_(The woman who abandoned you is broken on the floor at your feet. The ring that is your birthright is a welcome weight on your finger.)_

 

You feel cold. You don't open your eyes. You don't want to see. 

 _Something_ **_good_.**

 

_(You sit at the head of the table. Your brothers are at your right, Hermione at the other end beside Ron. At your left are people whose names and faces you've only ever seen in wanted posters - your closest, most loyal followers, those who took prison over forsaking your name._

_There is a snake warm and heavy in your lap, and an owl perched on the arm of your chair._

_The fire burns hot and pleasant at your back. Everyone is watching you._

_You are smiling._ _)_

 

You open your eyes. 

A wispy silver bat is perched on your knee. 

You grin. 

"Fly in their faces and bite whatever excuse of a nose they have," you decide, giggling a little at the image of Dementors fleeing from a fluttering little bat. 

You wave your wand again to dismiss the little guy. You feel warm inside. 

  
That night, you dream of riding on the back of a massive bat, a familiar snake draped over your shoulders and a red-and-gold scarf wrapped around your neck.


End file.
